Oak & Palm Rum

The design works because the name and type of spirit are easy to spot right away, and the abstracted tree feels more classy than a small image of a tree somewhere. It has a good rhythm and flow.

– Grant Gunderson, Senior Art Director

Earthen hues, illustrative line work and strokes created from custom brushes made from bark and leaves, and touches of foil stamping unite to provide an evocative 1900s Florida feel to the label system for these Oak & Palm sister rums—a creative direction already established by the branding created by Dunn & Co. for St. Petersburg Distillery.

“They needed to work on their own as well as a family—the oak representing the spiced rum and the palm representing the coconut rum. I knew the trees should be reflected in the label as well as the color palette. I wanted something that showed an actual tree in some form; I ended up putting the simple shapes of each tree to make a frame for the content,” says senior art director Gunderson.

Discussing the production highlights of these digitally printed, embossed and stamped labels, Gunderson adds: “The small hints of foil really help give it a certain mood. The spiced rum has copper foil to make it feel very warm and spicy, while the coconut rum has gold foil making it feel more royal and sunny. The printer was able to maintain great detail in the foil, and it’s just enough that it enhances it, not overpowers it.”

Matching colors from one printing medium to another, and from substrate to substrate, can be tricky. Working closely with their printing partners, Gunderson was able to control the variables. “I wanted the capsule for the top of the bottle to match the label foil—they were able to match the foil and get the same effect. Also, I needed to print one-color elements after all the four-color process labels were finished—so we had a custom Pantone color created for future jobs.”